Interview with Die-ner (Get it?) director Patrick Horvath

Recently, I reviewed a fun little indie zom-com (zombie comedy) called Die-ner (Get It?) on the old site if you remember. If not, please read it here. This film totally took me by surprise based on the fact that the punny title was a huge turn-off from the get go. Fortunately, that was the worst thing about this film and I have actually grown to accept it over time. I enjoyed the film so much that I contacted director Patrick Horvath and actor Josh Grote for interviews to use, but held off until the relaunch to post them.

Without further ado, my interview with director Patrick Horvath.

The Man-Cave (TMC): How did you get into filmmaking?

Patrick Horvath (PH): When I went into college, I jumped into it knowing that I wanted to make movies. So fast-forward four years... I found myself with a film degree from the University of Iowa, a couple of short films under my belt and a job at a video store in Chicago. I spent the better part of three years playing the "what now?" game and I continued to just consume a ton of films. I wrote a lot of screenplays that I tried to show around and realized after a while that Chicago wasn't the best place for me at the time.

I reached a point where I needed to just DO something if I was ever going to get the ball rolling, so I bought a couple of spring-wound Bolex cameras off of Ebay and shot my first little feature project that I wrote and directed. I paid for the whole thing using credit cards and learned all sorts things about filmmaking in the process... Namely, that I wanted to do more.

After I finished up that first project I made my way over to Los Angeles where some of my gracious friends offered me a couch to crash on for however long I needed to get on my feet. It was on my first job out in L.A. where I met Seth Martin who would later be the producer for Die-ner (Get It?). A couple years after we first met, we got to talking about a short that I had written and the possibility of stretching it out to a feature that I would write and direct and voilà.

TMC: Any projects you directed/wrote before Die-ner?

PH: The first project that I wrote and directed was a feature in Chicago called 100 Years From Now and I still haven't been able to get it out in the world as much as I'd like to. It's still coming though, I swear. The story follows a slacker-fellow who realizes a little late in the game that everyone else on Earth has bailed and gone on to another planet. Since he didn't really have any friends or family he realizes on his own that he's been left with the whole world to do whatever he pleases... Which isn't much. He makes due with an imaginary girlfriend, who's generally dissatisfied with him, and he finds that the Earth is slowly being populated by these aloof demons. The project turned out pretty great and I'm hoping to have it out in the world soon.

TMC: The opening scene of Die-ner (Get It?) was a great homage to Tarantino's works and I see his influence floating around this entire picture. What other director(s) is your biggest influence?

PH: The Tarantino comparison has been pretty amusing to me because it's popped up a lot with Die-ner, but to be honest it wasn't something I was aiming for. When I started reading that, I thought about the opening sequence and, yeah, it's pretty similar to that first Marsellus Wallace scene in Pulp Fiction. When I wrote that first scene, I just never wanted to show Ken's face because if you're not seeing the reverse shot of a conversation then the whole thing becomes unsettling.

That all being said, I love movies, A LOT, and one of the side-effects is that all these things are just seeping into your brain and manifesting themselves whether you're aware of it or not. If you're lucky, you can recognize and do something interesting with it.

In terms of directors who are my biggest influence: well, I suppose if I could make a movie that was equal parts Ingmar Bergman and early John Carpenter I'd be a happy man.

TMC: What gave you the idea to have a zombie film in a diner of all places?

PH: The idea to set it in a diner was pretty much the main seed of the short that I'd written. The directive was to have a horror story that was contained in some sort of roadside stopping point. The idea of having it be zombies was my de-facto horror element that I figured I'd have the most to play with. You've got a lot of room when it comes to figuring out how you can represent them on a tiny budget and to be honest they're the metaphorical gift that keeps on givin'.

TMC: Let's talk horror flicks for a second. What is your all-time favorite and least favorite zombie film?

PH: Hmmm... That's a tough question. I'd probably say that my all-time favorite hovers somewhere around Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead (although I don't know if you'd qualify that as ghost-zombies or what?), Michele Soavi's Cemetery Man, or Romero's Dawn of the Dead. My least favorite could possibly be Uwe Boll's House of the Dead, but it's bad in an incredibly fascinating way.

TMC: Great picks. And I agree about House of the Dead. Anyone who states that is a good film is obviously a crew member or one of Bolle's relatives.

I read the film was shot in 8 nights. What was the biggest obstacle you had to tackle besides time management?

PH: The film was technically shot in 9 nights, not that one more night gave us a lot of breathing room. I'd say the hardest thing to pushing something through that quickly is keeping your focus on the through-line of the whole film, and keeping the big picture in view. The whole script was of course chopped up based on when we could shoot in which rooms of the diner depending on sunrise and sunset, and you're always double checking everything: props, making sure the proper tone is there for the scene at hand, etc. It wouldn't have been possible if we didn't have the great crew that we did and the excellent cast.

TMC: What was the budget on this film?

PH: The budget was pretty minimal, but I couldn't tell you what it was exactly.

TMC: Any weird/funny stories on the set that you would like to share?

PH: My favorite story during production happened on the last night of shooting. We were primarily shooting all exteriors that involved the semi-truck and it was a whole process of getting the rented truck and driver situated for camera. We shot out a couple of scenes and were getting ready to move on to some interior truck-cab shots. I jumped up into the driver seat and started to go through the blocking with our D.P. Jon Rigattieri. As I was talking to everyone who was standing below me, I thought I noticed something move inside the truck. I looked behind me and just noticed a pile of blankets in the back seat of the cab. I tried to continue and thought I saw something again. Upon looking down behind the seat, I saw a hand poking out from under the blanket. The hand moved a little bit so I took my cue and climbed out. Apparently our truck driver insisted that he'd like to sleep in the cab throughout the shoot. So yeah, every shot of Josh or Parker where they're doing a scene inside the cab, there's a sleeping driver directly behind them.

TMC: What made you switch gears to full-blown horror for the last third of the final act?

PH: It made sense to me to have Ken's problem multiply exponentially by the time we get to the end. Also, if I was going to do a zombie film there were a couple things I wanted to check off my list: specifically a fella walking around carrying his own head and somebody getting torn apart. The fact that the dude gets to scream, "I regret nothing!" while getting torn apart was a feather in my cap.

TMC: That was a great line and I loved the way Josh delivered it. What was behind the dream sequences? It seemed like it was going to mention how Ken became a killer, but it was left open-ended. Was that open-ended intentional or did it just fly over my head?

PH: The open-ended quality was definitely intentional. I thought it would be interesting to have Ken's mind continually reverting to this un-ending loop of an impossible game of hide-and-seek with a mother-figure every time he was knocked unconscious. I specifically didn't want it to explain anything overtly because that's usually what everyone expects to see and it's something that I don't really think you can explain in a moment. What makes a sociopath a sociopath is a great question, but I think that it has to do with something hardwired in the brain versus something experiential.

TMC: What is in the pipeline for you right now? Any upcoming projects you would like to promote?

PH: The Assistant Director from Die-ner, Dallas Hallam, and I have just finished co-writing and co-directing another feature titled Entrance. We're getting ready to put it out into the festival circuit and hopefully we'll be making the rounds soon. It's a character piece thriller that's in a much different direction than Die-ner and we're pretty psyched about how it's turned out. There's also a webisode series that I'm doing with Shot In the Dark Productions that we're getting ready to ramp up. It's a sort of take on Sisyphus that's based on a recon-squad in late-60's Vietnam. It should be coming out towards the end of this year, it's a comedy and it's called Hell Parade.

TMC: Should we hold our breaths for a Die-ner sequel? Is one planned?

PH: Hmmm... Well don't hold your breath. We definitely didn't plan on doing a sequel to Die-ner, but I'm finding it pays to never say "never." If the bag-o-money police showed up at my door tomorrow demanding to pay me for a new chapter then, brother, I'd probably say "yes."

I want to thank Patrick for taking his time for this interview and I really hope to see his upcoming projects get released soon. Especially 100 Year From Now. Again, if you have not seen this film and want to watch a flick that has an original and unique spin on the zombie genre, please see Die-ner (Get It?) as soon as you can.

Die-ner (Get It?) is available from Osirius Entertainment and Amazon.